Mies maintains Belgian Audi Club Team WRT’s dominance in Free Practice 2 at the Hungaroring

26 August 2016

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Christopher Mies maintained Belgian Audi Club Team WRT and Audi’s place at the top of the times during the Blancpain GT Series Sprint Cup’s second practice session of the day at the Hungaroring this afternoon.

Only 15 of the session’s 80 minutes had elapsed when the German set what would remain the afternoon’s benchmark time of 1m42.871s. That was 1.1s faster than WRT team-mate Robin Frijns had managed in the morning and, ultimately, 0.274s quicker than his nearest rival Filip Salaquarda could muster at the end of the day aboard his ISR-run R8.

A red flag with 10 minutes remaining prevented anyone else from challenging Mies. However, there was just enough time for WRT’s Laurens Vanthoor to make it an Audi 1-2-3 with a lap 0.035s shy of Salaquarda’s.

AMG-Team HTP Motorsport’s Dominik Baumann and Maxi Buhk were next up, building on their eighth place from the morning’s session to circulate just 0.007s slower than Vanthoor, while another Mercedes-AMG driven by AKKA ASP’s Tristan Vautier completed the top-five one tenth further back.

The sole remaining Phoenix Racing Audi driven by Alessio Picariello and Nicolaj Moller Madsen completed the top-six to give the team a much needed boost after the sister machine was badly damaged in first practice. That car has now been withdrawn and will take no further part in the meeting.

Picariello and Moller Madsen’s leading Silver Cup entry ended up one place and just 0.002s clear of Rene Rast and Will Stevens’ WRT Audi, which was itself a mere 0.038s faster than Jazeman Jaafar and Clemens Schmid’s HTP Motorsport Mercedes-AMG that finished second in the day’s opening session.

The honour of first non-Audi or Mercedes-AMG once again went to GRT Grasser Racing Team’s #16 Lamborghini Huracan driven by Stefan Rosina and Marco Mapelli, while ROWE Racing’s #98 BMW M6 completed the top-10.

Elsewhere, the #111 Kessel Racing Ferrari of Stephen Earle and David Perel ended the session fastest of the Am Cup contenders in an impressive 12th overall, 11 places higher than the leading Pro-Am car driven by Michal Broniszewski and Giacomo Piccini.

Qualifying gets underway tomorrow at 11:45 local time before the first of the weekend’s hour-long races starts at 17:15. Both will be streamed live on www.blancpain-gt-series.com/live.